Can't miss op-eds of 2013

Public perceptions about pot have come a long way, from the dire warnings of "Reefer Madness" to growing acceptance of medical marijuana and the legalization of recreational use.

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History of marijuana in America37 photos

Harry Anslinger was named commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics when it was established in 1930. While arguing for marijuana prohibition, he played on Americans' fear of crime and foreigners. He spun tales of people driven to insanity or murder after ingesting the drug and spoke of the 2 to 3 tons of grass being produced in Mexico. "This, the Mexicans make into cigarettes, which they sell at two for 25 cents, mostly to white high school students," Anslinger told Congress.

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History of marijuana in America37 photos

A poster advertises the 1936 scare film "Reefer Madness," which described marijuana as a "violent narcotic" that first renders "sudden, violent, uncontrollable laughter" on its users before "dangerous hallucinations" and then "acts of shocking violence ... ending often in incurable insanity."

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History of marijuana in America37 photos

Marijuana cigarettes are hidden in a book circa 1940. Congress passed the Marijuana Tax Act in 1937, effectively criminalizing the drug.

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History of marijuana in America37 photos

Even after Congress cracked down on marijuana in 1937, farmers were encouraged to grow the crop for rope, sails and parachutes during World War II. The "Hemp for Victory" film was released in 1942 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

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A woman buys ready-rolled marijuana cigarettes from a dealer at her door circa 1955.

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Members of the Grateful Dead talk with reporters from their home in San Francisco on October 5, 1967. The band was protesting being arrested for marijuana possession.

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U.S. Customs agents track the nationwide marijuana market during Operation Intercept, an anti-drug measure announced by President Nixon in 1969. The initiative intended to keep Mexican marijuana from entering the United States.

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Research scientist Dr. Reese T. Jones, right, adjusts the electrodes monitoring a volunteer's brain response to sound during an experiment in 1969 that used a controlled dosage of marijuana. The tests were conducted at the Langley Porter Institute at the University of California, San Francisco.

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Marijuana use became more widespread in the 1960s, reflecting the rising counterculture movement.

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People share a joint during a 1969 concert in Portland, Oregon. In 1973, Oregon became the first state to decriminalize cannabis.

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Police dogs trained to smell out hidden marijuana examine U.S. soldiers' luggage at the airport during the Vietnam War in 1969. Drug use was widespread during the war.

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Marijuana reform was the Life magazine cover story in October 1969. The banner read: "At least 12 million Americans have now tried it. Are penalties too severe? Should it be legalized?"

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Protesters wade in the Reflecting Pool at the National Mall in Washington during the "Honor America Day Smoke-In" thrown by marijuana activists in response to the official "Honor America Day" rally organized by President Nixon supporters at the Lincoln Memorial on July 4, 1970.

President Jimmy Carter, with his special assistant for health issues, Dr. Peter Bourne, beside him, talks to reporters at the White House about his drug abuse control message to Congress on August 2, 1977. Among other things, he called for the elimination of all federal criminal penalties for the possession of up to one ounce of marijuana.

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First lady Nancy Reagan participates in a drug education class at Island Park Elementary School on Mercer Island, Washington, on February 14, 1984. She later recalled, "A little girl raised her hand and said, 'Mrs. Reagan, what do you do if somebody offers you drugs?' And I said, 'Well, you just say no.' And there it was born." She became known for her involvement in the "Just Say No" campaign.

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Robert Randall smokes marijuana that was prescribed to treat his glaucoma in 1988. He became the first legal medical marijuana patient in modern America after winning a landmark case in 1976.

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President George H. Bush holds up a copy of the National Drug Control Strategy during a meeting in the Oval Office on September 5, 1989. In a televised address to the nation, Bush asked Americans to join the war on drugs.

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A television ad aired in 1996 by Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole's campaign included footage from a 1992 MTV interview of a laughing President Clinton saying he would inhale marijuana if given the chance to relive his college days.

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Dennis Peron takes notes during a phone interview while Gary Johnson lights up at the Proposition 215 headquarters in San Francisco on October 11, 1996. The ballot measure was approved when voters went to the polls in November, allowing medical marijuana in California.

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People in New York gather for a pro-cannabis rally on May 4, 2002. That same day, almost 200 similar events took place around the world to advocate for marijuana legalization. It was dubbed the "Million Marijuana March."

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Different varieties of medical marijuana are seen at the Alternative Herbal Health Services cannabis dispensary in San Francisco on April 24, 2006. The Food and Drug Administration issued a controversial statement a week earlier rejecting the use of medical marijuana, declaring that there is no scientific evidence supporting use of the drug for medical treatment.

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Medicinal marijuana patient Angel Raich wipes her eyes during a press conference on March 14, 2007, in Oakland, California. The 9th circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that 41-year-old Raich, who used medicinal marijuana to curb pain from a brain tumor as well as other ailments, did not have the legal right to claim medical necessity to avoid the possibility of prosecution under federal drug laws.

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Coffeeshop Blue Sky worker Jon Sarro, left, shows a customer different strains of medical marijuana on July 22, 2009, in Oakland, California. Voters in the city approved a measure during a vote-by-mail special election for a new tax on sales of medicinal marijuana at cannabis dispensaries.

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A patient prepares to smoke at home in Portland, Maine, on October 22, 2009, a decade after the state approved a medical marijuana referendum.

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Sonja Gibbins walks through her growing warehouse in Fort Collins, Colorado, on April 19, 2010. Since the state approved medical marijuana in 2000, Colorado has seen a boom in marijuana dispensaries, trade shows and related businesses. So far 20 states and the District of Columbia have made smoking marijuana for medical purposes legal.

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Marijuana activist Steve DeAngelo wears a "Yes on Prop 19" button as he speaks during a news conference in Oakland, California, on October 12, 2010, to bring attention to the state measure to legalize marijuana for recreational purposes in California. Voters rejected the proposal.

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Nutrient products are placed on shelves in the weGrow marijuana cultivation supply store during its grand opening on March 30, 2012, in Washington, D.C. The store is a one-stop-shop for supplies and training to grow plants indoors, except for the actual marijuana plants or seeds. Legislation was enacted in 2010 authorizing the establishment of regulated medical marijuana dispensaries in the nation's capital.

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People light up near the Space Needle in Seattle after the law legalizing the recreational use of marijuana went into effect in Washington on December 6, 2012.

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A man smokes a joint during the official opening night of Club 64, a marijuana social club in Denver, on New Year's Eve 2012. Voters in Colorado and Washington state passed referendums to legalize recreational marijuana on November 6, 2012.

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Members of a crowd numbering tens of thousands smoke and listen to live music at the Denver 420 Rally on April 20, 2013. Annual festivals celebrating marijuana are held around the world on April 20, a counterculture holiday.

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Sean Azzariti, an Iraq war veteran and marijuana activist, becomes the first person to legally purchase recreational marijuana in Colorado on January 1, 2014. Colorado was the first state in the nation to allow retail pot shops. "It's huge," Azzariti said. "It hasn't even sunk in how big this is yet."

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In April, Maryland became the 18th state to decriminalize marijuana possession. Research published by the Pew Research Center in February showed 54% of Americans support legalization of marijuana.

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Matt Figi's 7-year-old daughter Charlotte was once severely ill. But a special strain of medical marijuana known as Charlotte's Web, which was named after the girl early in her treatment, has significantly reduced her seizures. In July, Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pennsylvania, introduced a three-page bill that would amend the Controlled Substances Act -- the federal law that criminalizes marijuana -- to exempt plants like Charlotte's Web that have an extremely low percentage of THC, the chemical that makes users high.

Alaska Cannabis Club CEO Charlo Greene prepares to roll a joint at the medical marijuana dispensary in Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday, February 20. Several days later, Alaska became the third state in the nation to allow recreational marijuana.

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Story highlights

CNN Opinion rounds up ten of the most shared pieces of 2013

LZ Granderson: On not-so normal days, teachers are also asked to be heroes

Bruce Schneier: Welcome to an Internet without privacy; we're here with hardly a fight

David Rothkopf: Hillary Clinton is likely to be the next president of the U.S.

In 2013, events such as the U.S. government shutdown, hot-button issues such as marriage equality and ramped-up debates about privacy and surveillance made headlines and caught readers' attention. Many of the perspectives published by CNN Opinion were shared widely on social media. Here are some of the most shared op-eds from the year.

Dan Riffle: Marijuana is safer than alcohol

For more than 80 years, our government has spent tens of billions of taxpayer dollars fighting a war against marijuana. We arrest three-quarters of a million adults every year, 87% for simple possession rather than production or sales of marijuana. Courtrooms turn into assembly lines churning out probationers -- mostly minorities -- with convictions that will make it almost impossible to find employment.

Dan Riffle

The result? Marijuana is universally available, used by almost half of Americans at some point in their lives, and we've enriched murderous drug cartels fueling violence in Mexico that has claimed more than 60,000 lives. Read more...

Dan Riffle is a former assistant prosecutor and the director of federal policies at the Marijuana Policy Project, the primary financial backer of the 2012 campaign to regulate marijuana in Colorado.

(Note: On the subject of marijuana, Dr. Sanjay Gupta's opinion piece in the CNN Health section was hugely popular:)

Dr. Sanjay Gupta: Why I changed my mind on weed

I was too dismissive of the loud chorus of legitimate patients whose symptoms improved on cannabis.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta

Instead, I lumped them with the high-visibility malingerers, just looking to get high. I mistakenly believed the Drug Enforcement Agency listed marijuana as a schedule 1 substance because of sound scientific proof. Surely, they must have quality reasoning as to why marijuana is in the category of the most dangerous drugs that have "no accepted medicinal use and a high potential for abuse."

They didn't have the science to support that claim, and I now know that when it comes to marijuana neither of those things are true. It doesn't have a high potential for abuse, and there are very legitimate medical applications. Read more...

Each day more than 55 million students attend the country's 130,000 schools. Each day, parents and guardians entrust some 7 million teachers with the education of our children.

LZ Granderson

And on a normal day, that is all we expect teachers to do -- teach.

But on those not-so normal days, we are reminded that for six hours a day and more, five days a week, teaching is not the only thing teachers are charged with doing. On those not-so-normal days, we are reminded that teachers are also asked to be surrogate parents, protectors, heroes. Read more...

LZ Granderson, who writes a weekly column for CNN.com, was named journalist of the year by the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association and was a 2011 Online Journalism Award finalist for commentary. He is a senior writer and columnist for ESPN the Magazine and ESPN.com. Follow him on Twitter @locs_n_laughs.

Bruce Schneier: The Internet is a surveillance state

Welcome to a world where Google knows exactly what sort of porn you all like, and more about your interests than your spouse does. Welcome to a world where your cell phone company knows exactly where you are all the time. Welcome to the end of private conversations, because increasingly your conversations are conducted by e-mail, text or social networking sites.

Bruce Schneier

And welcome to a world where all of this, and everything else that you do or is done on a computer, is saved, correlated, studied, passed around from company to company without your knowledge or consent; and where the government accesses it at will without a warrant.

Welcome to an Internet without privacy, and we've ended up here with hardly a fight. Read more...

The pictures in the news, day after day, tell the story: House Speaker John Boehner looks like he hasn't slept in weeks. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell looks like he swallowed a lemon. Sen. Ted Cruz looks bizarrely smug while the world crumbles around him, and President Barack Obama can only shake his head and loosen his collar. The only Washington type who was smiling on the front page of the newspaper this week was Janet Yellen, newly nominated by Obama to be the chairwoman of the Federal Reserve, and anointed by one observer as the most powerful woman in world history.

Hanna Rosin

Oh, and there was one other person smiling in Washington: Christine Lagarde, chief of the International Monetary Fund, who was in the U.S. capital for the organization's annual meeting and who said just about the only sensible thing anyone in town has said all week on the debt ceiling crisis: "I hope that in a few weeks' time, we will look back and say, 'What a waste of time that was.' " Read more...

Hanna Rosin is the author of "The End of Men: And the Rise of Women," now out in paperback. She is co-founder of Slate's DoubleX, a Web magazine about women issues.

John Sutter: The most unequal place in America

Many people in Lake Providence, Louisiana, never will climb out of poverty.

John D. Sutter

The tools simply aren't available.

Only 9% of kids from the bottom fifth of the earners in Lake Providence will make it into the top fifth, according to research from Harvard University and the University of California, Berkeley.

America has tried to create systems that are designed to ferry people from one side of the lake to the other, or to at least stop them from sinking further. Government programs help pay for health insurance and day care. Food stamps have kept families from going hungry.

And public schools have proved to be one of the best routes out of poverty.

In Lake Providence, however, the education system seems to underscore class divisions.

Kids from the north side of the lake go to Briarfield Academy. Mascot: the Rebels. Graduation rate: 100%. It has no formal scholarship program, its principal said.

On the south, there's only one public high school. Mascot: the Panthers. Graduation rate: 72.5%. Read more...

Can we stop worrying about Millennials yet? Can we? Maybe? I know it's very scary to be reminded that you are aging, but older people can probably stop pretending young people are going to destroy the planet. We got this. (By the way, thanks for leaving it in tip-top shape.)

Those of us born between 1980 and 2000 are not nearly as God-awful as the writers who constantly profile our tech-addled, be-hipstered people would have you believe. Read more...

Hillary Clinton is likely to be the next Democratic presidential nominee because she is the best-known active Democratic politician, because she has repeatedly triumphed over adversity and because she has made herself well-liked at a time that politicians are typically viewed with contempt.

David Rothkopf

But she is likely to be the next president, the first woman to be president of the United States, because of the quality of her character and her work on behalf of the American people. With some luck, she will use the next two years to restore her energy and prepare for what lies ahead. Because regardless of what political party in which you may find yourself, it is hard to deny that she elevates our political discourse in ways that few, if any, others do on the contemporary stage. Read more...

We all have 83-year-old Edith Windsor to thank for in pushing the issue of same-sex marriage equality on to the national front.

Suze Orman

Edie and her partner, Thea, were together for 40 years. How many marriages do you know that have lasted that long? But when Thea died in 2009, Edie was hit with a $363,000 federal estate tax bill because as a same-sex couple, they were not eligible for the unlimited marital deduction. Are we really a nation that says it is fair and just to demand Edie pay a $363,000 penalty because she is gay? Read more...

Suze Orman is a personal finance expert and hosts "The Suze Orman Show" on CNBC. She is a best-selling author of ten books, including "The Money Class."

Bob Greene: Taxpayers, you deserve your money back

We pay federal income tax with one solitary and bedrock expectation: We are handing our money over so that the federal government will run.

Bob Greene

Some people may not like how the government operates; some may not care for a particular president or a particular member of Congress or a particular government program.

We accept that, as we pay our taxes. We pay those taxes because we have to. We know that we don't get to withhold those taxes just because we may dislike some of the people or programs the taxes are funding.

But when we are told that the government has been shut down-- that it has been closed for business -- that's different.

CNN contributor Bob Greene is a best-selling author whose 25 books include "Late Edition: A Love Story"; "Duty: A Father, His Son, and the Man Who Won the War"; and "Once Upon a Town: The Miracle of the North Platte Canteen."